psych test 2 (ch 5,6,7,8)

Habituation

when our response to a stimulus decreases over time (nonassociative)

Sensitization

when our response to a stimulus increases over time (nonassociative)

Modeling

imitating a behavior seen in others (observational)

Vicarious Learning

learning to encourage in a behavior or not due to seeing others (observational)

Classical Conditioning

learning to make an involuntary response to a stimulus other than the original, natural stimulus that normally produces the same response (associative)

Unconditioned stimulus

a naturally occurring stimulus that leads to an involuntary response (food being presented)

Unconditioned response

involuntary response to a naturally occurring or unconditioned stimulus (salivating to food)

Conditioned stimulus

stimulus that becomes able to produce a learned response by being paired with the original unconditioned stimulus (ringing the bell)

Conditioned response

learned reflex response to a conditioned stimulus (salivating to the bell)

Conditioned taste aversion

Nausea or aversive response to a particular taste

Operant conditioning

learning consequences to behavior and altering behavior due to the consequences (voluntary & associative)

Thorndike's Law of Effect

responses that lead to satisfying consequences are more likely to be repeated

Skinner

created operant conditioning

Reinforcement

any event or stimulus, that when following a response, increases the probability that the response will occur again

Primary reinforcement

reinforcement that uses a physical survival need

Secondary reinforcement

reinforcing using something that you have learned to value, like money.

Positive reinforcement

addition of a pleasant stimulus (giving a dog a treat)

Negative reinforcement

removal/avoidance of an unpleasant stimulus (car beeping until you buckle your seatbelt)

Fixed interval reinforcement

reinforcement is delivered after a certain amount of time has passed (paychecks)

Variable interval reinforcement

reinforcement that is delivered after a passage of time that is not regular (waiting for an elevator)

Fixed ratio reinforcement

reinforcement delivered after a certain number of responses (a child doing chores)

Variable ratio reinforcement

reinforcement is delivered after an unpredictable number of responses

Punishment

an event that decreases the behavior that it follows

Punishment by removal

removal of pleasurable stimulus (taking a phone away)

Punishment by application

adding an unpleasant stimulus (spanking)

Extinction

the diminishing of a conditioned response; behavior is not performed anymore

Spontaneous recovery

Recurrence of an extinguished conditioned response, usually following a rest period

Learned helplessness

the tendency to fail to act to escape from a situation because of a history of repeated failures in the past

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

kids watched adults beat or not harm a doll and based their actions off of it (modeled behavior)

4 key characteristics of observational learning

attention, memory, imitation, desire

3 stages of memory

encoding, storage, retrieval

Sensory memory

A type of storage that holds sensory information for a few seconds or less

Short term memory

lasts 12-30 seconds; 7+- 2 pieces of info can be remembered

Long term memory

the relatively permanent storage of information

Elaborative rehearsal

transferring short term memories to long term by making them meaningful in some way

Implicit memory

does not require conscious effort and often cannot be verbally described

Anterograde amnesia

inability to form new memories after an injury (50 first dates)

Retrograde amnesia

loss of memories from our past after an injury

Declaritive memory

type of long term memory that is conscious and known

Episodic memory

memory for one's personal past experiences

Priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory ("we need to talk")

Serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list

Primacy effect

tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list

Recency effect

tendency to remember words at the end of a list

Flashbulb memories

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

Misattribution

memory error in which you confuse the source of your information

Cryptomnesia

when a person thinks he or she has come up with a new idea, yet has only retrieved a stored memory

Encoding failure

failure to process information into memory

Proactive interference

something we learn beforehand gets in the way

Retroactive interference

something we learn after that gets in the way

Concepts

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

Formal concepts

concepts that are defined by specific rules or features

Natural concepts

concepts people form as a result of their experiences in the real world

Prototype

a concept that closely matches the defining characteristics of the concept

Schemas

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

Scripts

a kind of schema that involves a familiar sequence of activities (grocery shopping)

Heuristic

educated guess based on prior experiences that helps narrow down the possible solutions for a problem; also known as a "rule of thumb"

Intelligence

the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations

Spearman's theory

g factor and s factor

G Factor

general intelligence

S Factor

specific intelligence

Piaget's first stage

sensorimotor stage (birth-2): infants use their senses and developing motor abilities to learn about their environment; object permanence

Piaget's second stage

Preoperational stage (2-7 years) preschool child learns to use language as a means of exploring the world

Piaget's third stage

concrete operational stage (7-11) school-aged child becomes capable of logical thought processing but is not yet capable of abstract thinking

Piaget's fourth stage

Formal operational stage (11 +) the adolescent becomes capable of abstract thinking

Vygotsky's theory

Emphasized the role of others and the importance of social and cultural interaction in cognitive development

Flynn Effect

IQ scores steadily increasing over time in modernized countries

Cognitive universalism

theory that concepts are universal and influence the development of language

Personal fable

young people believe themselves to be unique and protected from harm

Imaginary audience

young people believing that others are just as concerned with the adolescents thoughts as they themselves are